June 2017 – The God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; … God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it …” (Genesis 1:26-28a NASB)

“Let Us make … in Our image, to be like Us.” (Emphasis added.) From the very beginning, God spoke in terms of the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is perhaps the most profound and celebrated of all mysteries. One God exists in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – three Persons with one nature, substance, and being.

Blogger and author Matt Walsh addresses an altogether different triad in his new book, The Unholy Trinity: Blocking the Left’s Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender. Although separate, the attacks are joined in purpose – to rebel against the authority of God.

Liberalism’s beginningsThe philosophy of liberalism was born with Lucifer, and it rapidly invaded the human race with the actions of Adam and Eve. Already, the first man and woman desired to be equal with God, and they partook of the fruit that would purportedly enable them to secure the position they imagined could be theirs.

This primordial pridefulness has carried on through God’s crowning creation for thousands of years and, in today’s culture, it is dressed in words like “liberalism” and “progressivism.”

“What we call ‘liberalism’ in public discourse today is really just the worship of self,” said Walsh. “It is the categorical belief in the supremacy of the individual.” Self-worship inevitably rejects and attacks the beauty of God’s creation and His created order.

“Looking at what the major cultural battles have centered on for the last 40 or 50 years,” Walsh told AFA Journal, “it seems apparent that it began with the definition of human life with Roe v Wade.”

Life, the primary targetAccording to Walsh, abortion is the high sacrament considered even holier and more sacred to liberals than gay marriage or genital mutilation. The battlefield concerning the sanctity of human life sets the stage for every other cultural battle.

“Life is valuable because it is life,” he said. “If you deny this, then you deny everything. There is no reason for justice, fairness, equity, compassion, or charity if human life has no value, or merely a value contingent upon whatever parameters we’ve arbitrarily assigned. There can be no justification for any human right if we are simply commodities whose stock falls or rises. This is why the war against liberalism must begin with the sanctity of life. If liberalism can redefine life – strip it of its value and its purpose – the game is over. There’s nothing left to argue about.”

The acceptance and practice of abortion fuels the destruction of the family by destroying children and neglecting the commitments, joys, and responsibilities of the God-ordained marital relationship. As the family is destroyed, abortion is further fueled. Selfishness is at the root of it all.

Marriage, our responsibilityWhen a people and their government fail to recognize things for what they actually are, when the true nature of things is disregarded or distorted, we end up with abortion and “gay marriage.” We have failed to recognize human beings as human beings worthy of life, and we have failed to see marriage as a sacred covenant between a man and a woman.

“True marital love,” said Walsh – “the kind that society has a stake in, the kind that must be given a name, that must become its own institution – is more than emotional attachment or infatuation. Those are fleeting things. Marital love is committed, indissoluble, and procreative. Even if the feelings fade for a time, the love – that choice to remain loyal, to remain one, together for the sake of the other and the children – persists.”

We lost our grip on marriage long before the Supreme Court case of Obergefell v Hodges redefined marriage. The loosening effect is evidenced by the divorce rates over the last several decades. And our ability to contend for marriage is greatly diminished as a result.

“Although I am writing about the Left’s assault on life, marriage, and gender,” Walsh said, “it should be made very clear that we are not victims of the assault. We are participants. Marriage is probably the best example of this. Christians were so inconsistent on the subject – our arguments purposefully incomplete so as to allow loopholes to accommodate our own extra-biblical lifestyle choices – that we’d already ensured there would be little to no chance the marriage ideal in America could survive a sustained attack from the Left.”

While the definition of marriage has been legally mangled, we can continue to properly define it in our daily lives.

Gender insanityJust a few years ago, someone with gender identity confusion would have been diagnosed with a mental illness called gender identity disorder. But that has changed. No longer considered a disorder, the person’s mind is now considered well while the body needs to be chemically and surgically corrected. And it appears that this tiny subset of gender confused men and women has wielded tremendous power over the American population.

Liberals achieved monumental success with the legalization of same sex marriage. But that wasn’t enough. Liberalism must be continually progressing, thus the reason for the word progressive. When the movement gains ground, it must secure more and more. It’s never enough.

“Liberalism has no truth at its foundation, so it can only keep moving,” said Walsh. “Christians live in a house built on rock, but secular progressives have no house at all. They are ideological nomads, wandering even farther into the ether. In other words, they look to dissolve the concept of gender because, well, what else is there to do?”

True Christianity, on the other hand, is immoveable – eternally unchanging. It has been standing on the same truths for over 2,000 years.

“Christianity does not invent new causes,” said Walsh, “because its one and only cause has always been truth, and truth never changes. While the liberalism of today sounds significantly different from the liberalism of six years ago, the Christianity of today sounds exactly the same as the Christianity of six hundred years ago or a thousand years ago. Christianity must defend the truth against new attacks, but the truth itself, that which is being defended, remains steady, present, and alive.”

Living in occupied territoryBut the culture at large has plunged into an abyss of relativism – of blatant sinfulness.

Abortion: legal.

Same sex marriage: legal.

Gender identify confusion: normal – reinvent your body.

“Today we are a conquered people living in occupied territory,” said Walsh. “There is no reason to compromise with the world anymore, or try to fit in, or worry that we might seem weird or strange or different. We won’t fit in, and we will seem strange, and there is no compromise. We know that now.”

So, without fear, we fight for the cause of truth and the souls of men – we live differently. And, ultimately, we win.

Matt Walsh is a Christian political columnist and talk radio host for TheBlaze, and author of The Unholy Trinity: Blocking the Left’s Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender. His columns are available at theblaze.com/matt-walsh